Monday, April 30, 2012

On April 25, 2012, Iraq’s Oil Ministry held an official ceremony to mark the beginning of drilling at Basra’s West Qurna 2 oil field. It is the second largest undeveloped bloc in the world, and contains an estimated 12.9 billion barrels of oil. Originally Russia’s Lukoil and Norway’s Statoil won a contract for West Qurna 2 in Iraq’s second energy auction, held in December 2009. Costs, the difficulty of the country’s business environment, and opportunities in other parts of the world eventually led Statoil to pull out of the deal, and sell its shares in the joint venture to their Russian partners in 2012. Statoil has signed deals with the America’s Baker Hughes and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering to complete the drilling and other services at the bloc. Lukoil plans on investing $25 billion into the field during its 20-year contract. When it reaches 150,000 barrels a day in production, it will begin being compensated by Iraq’s Oil Ministry. That’s supposed to be achieved by the end of 2013. By the second half of 2014, Lukoil plans on reaching 500,000 barrels a day. By 2015, it hopes to achieve 1.8 million barrels in production. This is all part of Iraq’s plans to become one of the largest petroleum producers in the world. Already, its deals with foreign energy companies are paying dividends as exports from southern Iraq, where most of the country’s energy resources reside, are taking off. By mid-April, they were up an estimated 400,000 barrels a day, going from 1.91 million barrels in March to 1.95 million. March’s overall export numbers were already a 15% jump from the previous month. With a planned five new oil terminals to be opened in Basra, two already operating, the country will finally have the infrastructure in place to take advantage of this huge boom in the industry.

The problem for Iraq is that it is already the most oil dependent country in the region, with around 90% of its revenue coming from the business. These new developments will make it even more reliant upon energy with Baghdad only giving lip service to diversifying the rest of the economy. As with many nations in this situation, Iraq is suffering from the resource curse, because its largest business provides only 2% of jobs. That usually results in a large and corrupt government bureaucracy, and a citizenry dependent upon public sector jobs. Iraq will be under even greater pressure, because it has one of the youngest and fastest growing populations in the Middle East and North Africa. There’s simply no way the government can provide enough jobs for this booming populace, which will lead to greater unemployment and public discontent. Its short-term success with oil may lead to long-term problems for its society.

Two Lukoil workers standing besides a boulder, which will eventually be included in a new processing facility at West Qurna 2 (Reuters)

Lukoil workers on a platform watching drilling begin at the field (Reuters)

On April 28, 2012, the Baghdad Operations Command began taking down concrete blast walls throughout Iraq’s capital. The Iraqi security forces have been talking about doing this as far back as 2008, (1) and some were removed in the Fadel district that year. (2) The barriers were originally erected by the United States to section off certain neighborhoods in Baghdad to stop insurgent and militia attacks. By limiting movement, business was also hampered, prices went up in the capital as a result, and the sectarian cleansing of Baghdad, which was caused by the conflict, was solidified. Now with security greatly improved, the government feels safe enough to take down more of the blast walls. That doesn’t mean daily attacks don’t still occur in Baghdad, but there is no more civil war, and violence is more like terrorism, which these barriers can’t stop. Iraqi citizens have often complained about the walls despite their positive affects, so many in the capital will likely welcome this change.

A checkpoint at a break in blast walls in Baghdad's Sadr City, Jun. 2008. (AP)

Thursday, April 26, 2012

In December 2011, the Kurds came up with the idea of a national conference to be attended by all of Iraq’s ruling parties to resolve the country’s political problems. These disputes have been going on since the March 2010 elections, and have only gotten worse since then with various provinces calling for autonomy, a wave of detentions of alleged Baathists, an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, and an attempt to unseat Deputy Premier Saleh al-Mutlaq, amongst other events. Within days however, the idea of actually pulling off a meaningful meeting seemed dim, and has only gotten worse with the passage of time. With Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continually outplaying his rivals the Iraqi National Movement there is no reason for him to compromise, meaning there is little chance for a substantive meeting to happen.

There are various examples of why the conference has not happened so far. The INM for one, has flip flopped on some issues, and made impossible demands at other times. One lawmaker from the list said in January that the Hashemi case would not be included, only to have another member demand that it should be in February. The list then called for an end to random arrests, the cessation of tensions in Diyala where the provincial council was under siege for attempting to declare itself an autonomous region, and the removal of security forces from outside the homes of the party’s leaders. The conference was supposed to be a place where these issues would be brought up and discussed, but the INM was trying to get parts of its agenda fulfilled before it even occurred when there was absolutely no reason for the prime minister to do so. Then President Barzani began calling for the meeting to occur in Kurdistan, nominally so that Vice President Hashemi could attend since he was residing there and wanted in the rest of the country. Allawi threw his support behind the change in location, but again, Maliki would not agree and there was nothing the INM nor Kurdish Coalition could do about it since the meeting would be meaningless without the prime minister. Around the same time, Moqtada al-Sadr said he would not attend, because he was not a politician, again putting a damper on things. The only positive event to come out of the new year was Maliki and Speaker Osama Nujafi who is from the National Movement agreeing upon creating a joint committee of all the leading parties that would go over the issues before the national conference occurred, and try to set the agenda. These initial moves were signs that the meeting would never come off, and if it did, nothing substantive would come of it. The INM has a bad tendency to overplay or mishandle its strategies. Hence its indecision over whether to include Hashemi or not, and making numerous demands be met before the conference was to even happen although they had absolutely no leverage to gain any of them. The Kurds proved little better, because while they were attempting to be honest brokers they too could not convince Maliki to come to the negotiating table in good faith, and trying to get the venue changed from Baghdad to Kurdistan perhaps in the hopes that it would be a neutral location never got off the ground. Maliki was in a position of power being the prime minister, and had no reason to compromise on any of these issues.

With January having come and gone, the conference was then pushed back to after the Arab Summit held in Iraq in March, but that didn’t mean there was any more likelihood that it would be pulled off. There were some demands that the meeting happen before the Arab League came to Baghdad, but again the prime minister was not willing to talk to the other parties when he was more concerned about showcasing the new Iraq to regional leaders and diplomats as they travelled to the country. President Talabani then suggested April 5 as a new date. By the time April had rolled around, there had been several planning committee meetings, but nothing had been achieved. Allawi and Barzani said they would not attend as a result, and eventually the INM stated it would no longer go to the planning sessions, because the conference would not mean anything. Again, Maliki played his hand well, while the others did not. He could sit back and remain prime minister, while the various parties argued about the details of the national conference. A three-month delay from its original date of January was sign enough that he could wait them out even more.

The national conference seemed a pipedream from the get go. Prime Minister Maliki was able to get the Kurds’ backing for his second term, and the National Movement to join his coalition while leaving out Allawi. From that moment on he has been in the drivers’ seat, and shows no sign of relinquishing it to the other lists. They can call for a meeting of all the parties, make various demands about what will be included, but there’s no reason for Maliki to comply. He can send his State of Law members to every meeting, and hear every complaint and argument, and drag out the process for months. All the while, he will remain in power. As long as the Sadrist, Supreme Council, and Badr Organization led National Alliance stands behind the premier there are not enough seats in parliament to threaten Maliki with a no confidence vote. If that coalition of Shiite parties stands together, and the Sadrists and Badr have been some of the prime minister’s strongest supporters, he can stave off any attempts by the Kurdish Coalition or the Iraqi National Movement to negotiate with them. In the meantime, talk of a national conference will likely drag on for several more months. One might even happen eventually. Maliki’s position will not change however, because he’s holding all the cards.

SOURCES

Ahmed, Hevidar, “National Convention to Be Boycotted By Major Players,” Rudaw, 4/3/12

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

In April 2012, Iraq’s Oil Ministry banned Exxon Mobil from its fourth auction for oil and gas fields in the country. At the same time, the Iraqi government has allowed the company to continue working on its existing contract in southern Iraq. The oil giant is also moving ahead with a deal that it signed with the Kurds. All together, that means that the exclusion will not seriously affect Exxon’s business in Iraq.

At the same time, there have been no other actions taken against the company. The Oil Ministry has warned Exxon that its dealings with the Kurds could threaten its contract for the West Qurna 1 field in Basra, but that has not happened. In fact, in April, the Ministry said that it could continue work there. Deputy Premier Hussein Shahristani who is in charge of the country’s energy policy, also said that the central government is open to talks about the three blocks that Exxon signed for in Kurdistan, but not those in the disputed areas. Those were both reversals for Baghdad. It has consistently objected to any contracts with the Kurds, and Deputy Premier Shahristani has been at the forefront of that effort since he was the Oil Minister in the first Maliki administration. It seems like despite the threatening rhetoric, the Iraqi government is willing to find some kind of compromise with Exxon.

Despite the press that Exxon’s banning from the next energy auction received, the Iraqi government’s action is not a real damper to the company’s plans. There was no real news that the company was interested in the bidding round to begin with. It also got the Oil Ministry’s approval to continue working on West Qurna 1, and it is moving ahead with its contacts with Kurdistan as well. There appears to be no real barriers to the corporation’s goal of working in both the southern and northern portions of Iraq. That could be a real game changer, because if Exxon can pull off these deals, other major companies will likely follow suit. That will be a major challenge to Maliki’s policies of concentrating authority in Baghdad. This battle is not over yet however, because the Oil Ministry still has control over the pipelines that are used for exports, which is the only way that foreign companies can make money from investing in Iraq’s oil and gas. The Kurds have extensive smuggling operations to Iran and Turkey, but there’s no way those can generate enough revenue to satisfy businesses, especially ones as large as Exxon. That means some kind of compromise will have to be worked out between Baghdad and Kurdistan out of political necessity. The question now is how long that will take, because Iraq is not known for acting fast, especially on very important issues like energy policy.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Recently there were reports that the Sadrists were joining with other groups who opposed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to unseat him in a no confidence vote. While it is true that Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers have increased their public criticisms of Maliki recently, the bloc remains loyal to the premier. Their statements appear to be part of an attempt to maintain a populist image demanding better services and governance, while all the time backing the premier.

The critical statements by the Sadr Trend led some to believe that they would switch allegiances, and push for a no confidence vote to get rid of Prime Minister Maliki. A closer examination of their position showed that the movement was still in the premier’s camp, and backed him in his drive against his political rivals such as the Iraqi National Movement. This is critical, because as long as the Sadrists with their 40 seats in parliament stand with Maliki, there is virtually no way his opponents can gain enough seats in the legislature to depose him. The Sadrists continue to benefit from this position, with their slew of ministries that give them power over jobs and contracts, which can be used in their vast patronage system. That doesn’t mean that Sadr will stop trying to play both sides with his calling the prime minister a dictator every now and then to keep up his popular image. When it comes to anything substantive however, he has not shown any willingness to change his stance.

Monday, April 23, 2012

In April 2012, the Kurdish Brotherhood List ended its two year plus boycott of the provincial council in Ninewa, northern Iraq. The list and the ruling Al-Hadbaa party had been at odds since 2008 over the future of the province, positions on the council, and the role of the Kurds. Immediately after the 2009 provincial elections, the Kurds even threatened to split the governorate in two, saying that all of the districts under their control would refuse to cooperate with the council. Now the Kurds have returned, but there are still major differences with Al-Hadbaa, and within the party itself, showing that the province is nowhere near solving all of its problems.

Governor Nujafi of Ninewa succeeded in getting the Kurdish Brotherhood List to end their boycott, and return to the provincial council (Rudaw)

On April 4, 2012, the Kurdish Brotherhood List ended their two-year long boycott of the Ninewa provincial council, and came back to their posts. Ninewa’s Governor Atheel Nujafi took credit for their return. He had been holding talks with them for at least two years. (1) That included meeting with top officials such as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani. The Kurds hold twelve out of 37 seats on the council. In January 2009, Nujafi’s Al-Hadbaa party won a majority in the governorate elections, and then proceeded to take all of the posts in the local government. That led to the Brotherhood List to walk out. The situation got so bad, that the Kurds said that all of the districts that they controlled in the province would no longer cooperate with the council, effectively splitting Ninewa in two. The two lists could not get along, because al-Hadbaa ran on an Arab nationalist agenda that opposed most of the Kurds’ objectives. Those included opposition to Article 140 of the Constitution that is to decide the fate of the disputed territories, demanding that the peshmerga withdraw from the governorate, and that Arabs being held by the Kurds be release. Ninewa includes many areas, which the Kurds wish to annex, because they were at one time either part of Kurdistan before Saddam changed the boundaries or have large Kurdish populations. They are hoping that Article 140 will allow them to add these districts. Until then, they have administrative authority over most of them, and have deployed the peshmerga to protect their interests there. Al-Hadbaa was a direct threat to those goals when it came to power.

Ninewa province is in northwest Iraq (Wikimedia)

Immediately after the Brotherhood List made their announcement, members of Al-Hadbaa began attacking the event. Some criticized Governor Nujafi for lobbying the Kurds to return, and accused him of cutting a secret deal with them. Some speculated that he wanted to win over the Brotherhood List to ensure himself of a second term in office after the 2013 provincial elections. Sheikh Faisal Abdullah Hameedi Ajeel al-Yaware for instance, of the Justice and Reform Movement within Al-Hadbaa claimed that Nujafi broke his agreement with them when he talked with the Kurds. Members of the Iraqi Islamic Party said that Nujafi acted unilaterally in his negotiations, and did not consult with others. These comments highlighted the internal divisions within Al-Hadbaa. Some factions have been calling for Nujafi to resign. One of the major causes has been his talks with the Kurds. Now that they have come back to the provincial council, these splits within the governor’s party will only come to the fore more. In effect, he has ended their carte blanche rule over the province.

The differences within Al-Hadbaa were seen in more than just public statements, but in actions as well. On April 11, Al-Hadbaa suspended going to a council meeting, because they claimed the Brotherhood List wanted to make it a secret session. Four days later, six out of the 12 Kurdish councilmembers were stopped at an Army checkpoint north of the provincial capital Mosul, and not allowed to pass. It appeared that some parts of Al-Hadbaa did not want to welcome their council brethren back with open arms. They were determined to make it as difficult as possible to carry on with business as usual.

The rapprochement with the Brotherhood List did not appear possible with the moves that Al-Hadbaa had been making immediately preceding their return. In March 2012, the council voted to freeze Article 140. The local government has absolutely no power over the constitution, but it was a symbolic gesture meant to show their opposition to Kurds annexing any area of the province. The Brotherhood List predictably condemned the move, and demanded that the council be dissolved. Foreshadowing where Governor Nujafi would be heading, he did not approve of the vote, and later said that there were some members of his party that were causing needless problems with the Kurdish list. In late-2011, there was talk that the province would become an autonomous region after Salahaddin said it would wanted to become one. Members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Baghdad, said that Ninewa could not become its own region without consulting with them first. Again, Governor Nujafi said that the two sides needed to reconcile, compromise, and work with each other, rather than constantly argue. Finally, in July 2011, an official from the KDP said that their peshmerga and Asayesh would not withdraw from the province, quoting security as the reason. As noted before, Al-Hadbaa had asked for the peshmerga to leave as a way to gain greater control of the province, and push back Kurdish hopes of annexing the disputed areas. Altogether, the two parties were continuously bickering with each other for the last year. Neither side could agree upon anything, and were intent on taking actions that would anger the other. It was this deep animosity, which made the Brotherhood’s decision to come back to the council all the more surprising.

Since the 2009 provincial elections, Ninewa has been one of the most deeply divided governorates in Iraq. The Brotherhood List not only left the council, but threatened to break away the sections of the province that they controlled. The disputes between it and Al-Hadbaa continued right up to 2012 with each taking a tit for tat approach to each other. It seemed like both sides were waiting out until the 2013 elections came around, to try to change the status quo. Governor Nujafi was not content with that however, and facing a loss of support within his own party, decided to make a concerted effort over several years to get the Kurds back to their positions. It was a political coup for him to have finally succeeded in April. The problem is that it appears to have increased the internal divisions with his own list, which will likely make governing Ninewa all the more difficult in the future, because now there are factions of Al-Hadbaa that not only do not want to work with the Kurds, but with the governor as well.

FOOTNOTES

1. Radio Free Iraq, “Citizens: fed up with the exchange of accusations between Hadbaa and Nineveh List,” 7/3/11

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Committee to Protect Journalists released its yearly report on press freedom around the world. It looks at violence and murders of reporters, and whether those cases are prosecuted or not by authorities. For the fifth straight year, Iraq was ranked the worst country in the world in terms of protecting the media.

In 2008, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) started releasing its Impunity Index that ranks countries on whether reporters are protected or not by their governments. For the fifth straight year Iraq was ranked the most dangerous place for journalists around the world. Since 2003 there have been 93 unsolved murders of members of the press. None of the cases have been solved, and no one has ever been punished. The CPJ noted that the number of deaths has gone down since the heyday of the sectarian civil war, which lasted from 2005-2008. In 2011 for instance, there was only one death, Hadi al-Mahdi. He was a radio host who criticized the government and was participating in protests that broke out at the beginning of that year. In February 2011, he was picked up in Baghdad at a café after demonstrating, taken to a camp run by the 11th Army Division, interrogated, beaten, faced electric shock, and threatened with rape. That didn’t stop his work at the radio station, and he received daily death threats until he was murdered in his home in Baghdad. That compared to four journalists who were killed in 2010. It’s the accumulation of cases over several years however that placed Iraq at the bottom of the CPJ report.

Activist and radio host Hadi Al-Mahdi was murdered in his home in Baghdad in 2011 (BBC)

On the Impunity Index, Iraq ranked almost three times as bad as the number two country on the list. Iraq had a rating of 2.906, which represented the number of unsolved murders per million inhabitants of the nation. That was a slight improvement from 2010 when it had a rank of 2.921. In second place was Somalia with 1.1813, showing that Iraq was a far worse place for the safety of the media. After that was the Philippines at 0.589, Sri Lanka at 0.431, Colombia with a score of 0.173, Nepal at 0.167, Afghanistan with a 0.145, Mexico at 0.132, Russia at 0.113, and Pakistan rounding out the top ten with a 0.109. Many of those countries have gone through civil wars, insurgencies, or narco-trafficking in the last several years, but they have no where near the number of unsolved cases against journalists as Iraq. That’s a strong sign that the Iraqi security forces are not seriously looking into these cases, and that the judiciary is not pushing to investigate or prosecute them either.

The dramatic decline in journalists’ deaths in Iraq should be a positive sign for the country. Unfortunately the authorities are still trying to establish their relationship with the media. It is common for reporters to be sued by politicians for libel if they publish a critical article. Some issues are considered off limits, because journalists fear that they may be arrested or attacked if they discuss them. During the protests that broke out at the beginning of the year, many media outlets were also assaulted. The fall of Saddam Hussein has opened up a plethora of newspapers and magazines, some of which are directly run by political parties, while some are independent. That range of choices offers Iraqis a wide range of opinions to read. Their ability to report on what they want is not fully protected however, as the number of unsolved murders of journalists shows, plus the common attacks upon them, both violent and legal. The government has yet to decide how much press freedom it will allow, and how much protection it will give the institution. That will mean more insecurity for the foreseeable future until all of these issues are played out.

SOURCES

Amnesty International, “Days Of Rage, Protests and Repression In Iraq,” April 2011

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has an adversarial relationship with the Election Commission since the 2010 parliamentary elections. He has gone to the courts to assert his authority over it, had his list try to unseat its members, and now the commission head and one of its members were just arrested, and released from jail. The main theme of the premier and his State of Law list has been that the Commission is corrupt, and therefore needs to be replaced. That was the basis for the recent detentions in April 2012. Almost all of the other political blocs have taken the latest move as an attempt by the prime minister to once again take over the commission, and perhaps dictate the terms of the upcoming voting.

Commission head Haydari made just that accusation. He told reporters while he was in jail that the arrests were aimed at not only the Commission’s integrity, but democracy in Iraq as well. He said the case was to block the extension of the Commission’s work. The current nine commissioners’ terms are due to expire on April 28. In 2011, parliament gave them extra time to conduct provincial elections in Kurdistan, which are to occur in September. Haydari accused Fatlawi of being responsible for the arrests. He went on to say that the charges against him were brought up by the lawmaker in 2011, investigated, and dismissed. Haydari’s remarks were followed by a barrage of others by Iraq’s leading political parties, all accusing Fatlawi, Maliki, and State of Law of trying to hijack the Commission’s work, and threatening the country’s fragile government.

Almost every list in Iraq condemned the arrest of the Commission members. Moqtada al-Sadr issued a statement saying that Maliki was responsible for the detentions, and was trying to corrupt future elections in Iraq. The deputy head of the Kurdish Coalition in parliament called on the country’s political parties to oppose the arrests. The Coalition said that they would investigate the role of Fatlawi in the whole affair. The President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Massoud Barzani accused the premier of trying to centralize power, control the government, undermine democracy, and threaten the future of elections in Iraq. Deputy Premier Saleh al-Mutlaq of the Iraqi National Movement complained that there were many other officials who were charged with corruption who were still walking free, questioning why the two Election Commission figures were singled out. He also mentioned that he believed the arrests were meant to stop the appointment of new officials to the Commission. Finally, White Iraqiya stated that the arrests seemed like a “vendetta” against Haydari, and that his detention would affect the 2013 provincial elections. These comments represented the full range of Iraqi political parties. The Iraqi National Movement has been Maliki’s greatest rival since the 2010 elections, but the Sadrists and White Iraqiya have been some of his biggest supporters. The Kurds were early supporters of the prime minister’s second term, but have become increasingly critical since then. All of the criticisms showed that the country’s major parties believed that the arrests were political in nature, and placed Maliki solely responsible for them. That’s largely because State of Law has repeatedly gone after the Commission since 2010.

From 2010-2011, Maliki and his State of Law consistently challenged the standing of the Election Commission. After the March 2010 parliamentary election, the prime minister demanded a recount when his list came in second place to the Iraqi National Movement. The Commission ended up only holding a partial re-tallying of the ballots in Baghdad, but it did not change the outcome. Then in January 2011, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Election Commission and all the other independent bodies in the government such as the Central Bank of Iraq were under the control of the cabinet, despite the 2005 Constitution explicitly saying that they were under the prerogative of parliament. The Commission and the United Nations both worried that the decision would lead to interference in future elections. That seemed to play out right afterward, when an Election Commission member accused Maliki of holding up the assignment of 29 general managers, claiming that their qualifications had to be checked. Then another story emerged that the prime minister tried to stop the appointment of 38 low level election officials. The Commission refused to follow the orders. In May, State of Law began accusing the Commission of corruption. Members of Maliki’s list called up election officials including Haydari in front of parliament for questioning about their salaries, special allowances, trips, and paying overtime. Hanan al-Fatlawi was the main lawmaker pushing the issue. In June, Maliki ordered the Commission to halt its work, which was again ignored, and the next month, State of Law issued a report laying out all of its accusations. That same month, Fatlawi got a no confidence vote against the Commission before the legislature. Only 94 out of a total of 325 parliamentarians voted in favor of the motion, which mostly came from State of Law, White Iraqiya, and the Change List. The Sadrists, the Supreme Council, the Kurdish Coalition, and the National Movement all voted against it. Afterward, Fatlawi went as far as to say that the defeat of the no confidence vote was a victory for corruption in Iraq. During all of these moves, State of Law was virtually alone. The no confidence vote in parliament showed that few believed any of the attacks upon the Election Commission, and in fact proved the exact opposite, that most were happy with its conduct. All of the charges against the Commission were largely taken as partisan and personal, as Maliki was upset with losing the 2010 balloting, and most believed he wanted to punish the Election officials as a result.

Iraq’s political system is still very immature. The rules of conduct are still being decided, and powerful individuals are largely able to do what they want despite what might be written in the Constitution or in legislation. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his State of Law’s constant attempts at controlling and undermining the Election Commission are just the latest examples of that. It was obvious that after State of Law came in second after the 2010 voting that Maliki was being vindictive, and led to his unleashing of a barrage of assaults upon the Commission. Given the fact that State of Law parliamentarian Fatlawi announced the warrants before the court even did in April just leads to the widespread suspicion that Maliki is once again trying to get rid of his opponents by manipulating the system. So far, he has been able to get away with these acts, because the other parties are weak and divided. The widespread condemnation of the arrests of the Commission members however, shows that they may unite to stop this latest move, but it’s unlikely to be the last time it happens.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

In 2006, Francis Fukuyama published America at the Crossroads, Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. In it, he covered three important facets of American foreign policy with regards to Iraq. First, he went over neoconservative ideology, something often talked about with regards to the invasion of Iraq, but little understood. Second, he debunked the idea that it was solely neoconservatives within the Bush administration who were responsible for the war. Finally, he discussed how neoconservatives betrayed their own ideas by how they dealt with the invasion and reconstruction of the country. Altogether, the neoconservatives did contribute to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein that would in the end, help discredit them.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq brought neoconservatives to the attention of American pundits, but there was broad misunderstanding of their origins and ideas. For example, some believed that because many of the neoconservatives within the Bush administration such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and head of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle were Jewish, their main concern was protecting Israel. Others mentioned University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss as being an influential thinker behind the movement. James Atlas of the New York Times wrote an article in May 2003, which went into great length arguing that Strauss was the intellectual godfather of neoconservatives. Strauss had little direct influence on any of the neoconservatives involved with the Bush administration, and said little about foreign policy to begin with. Neoconservatism actually had its roots with a group of leftists in 1930s and 1940s New York City. Irvin Kristol, Daniel Bell, Irving Howe, Seymour Martin Lipset, Philip Selznick, and Nathan Glazer are considered the founders of the movement. All of them were initially socialists or communists who ended up turning against those ideas, because of the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. They came to see oppressive governments as being a threat to other countries, because if they were willing to mistreat their own citizens, they would not regard the interests of other countries either. During World War II and the Cold War, they became opponents of liberals and the New Left, because they believed they were soft or sympathetic to the Soviet Union. They also saw World War II as a great moral victory for the United States against dictatorship, fascism and oppression, which helped spread democracy around the world. Kristol and Bell went on to found the journal Public Interest that dealt with American domestic politics. They were opposed to things like President Johnson’s Great Society, which they thought was liberal social engineering that would make the recipients dependent upon the government. By the 1980s, neoconservatives backed President Reagan, and saw the end of the Cold War as another victory for democracy. Irving Kristol’s son William went on to found the magazine the Weekly Standard in the 1990s, and he, along with Frank Kagan began advocating for a neoconservative foreign policy. In 1996, they wrote an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, and then in 2000 published a book Present Dangers that advocated for “benevolent hegemony” by the United States now that the Soviet Union had been defeated. The U.S. was to use its power to spread democracy, and keep its opponents at bay using overwhelming military superiority. The move from Left to Right happened to many Americans in the 1930s to 1960s. The brutality of Stalin made them disillusioned not only with communism, but with liberalism as well, while the victories in World War II and the Cold War emboldened them. Neoconservatives eventually became a vocal element of the larger conservative movement within the United States.

Neoconservatism ended up contributing a fourth approach to foreign policy in the United States in the 1990s. There are two dominant views of foreign affairs amongst American elites, realism, and idealism. Realism is based upon states acting as rational actors that want to protect and expand their power. Idealists want to establish a world order based upon law and global institutions. Fukuyama noted a third trend, which he called nationalists who only care about national security, but also have a strong isolationist view as well. In the 1990s, neoconservatives like Kristol and Kagan added their ideas, which were based upon four main principals. First, their beliefs about dictatorships led them to believe that the internal politics of countries were of great importance, because oppressive countries were much more likely to cause trouble in the international system such as wars. Second, was that morals should play a role in international relations, namely the promotion of democracy and human rights. Third, there was a distrust of international law and organizations to solve anything. Finally, neoconservatives’ dislike of liberal American domestic policies led them to believe that social engineering in other countries would not work either. The movement’s early opposition to Stalinism shaped their opinions of foreign affairs. It was also an alternative to the realist and idealists in American political thought. During the 1990s neoconservatives were also in the odd position of supporting many of President Clinton’s policies such as the intervention in the former Yugoslavia to stop the slaughter there, which mainstream conservatives opposed. Neoconservatives therefore pushed for a liberal foreign policy, but through American military power.

During the 1990s, Iraq became a major concern of neoconservative foreign policy experts. That started with the 1991 Gulf War. Neoconservatives supported the war to stop Saddam Hussein from expanding his power, but became opponents of the first Bush administration’s decision not to support the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings that followed the cessation of hostilities. Neoconservatives began pushing for regime change afterward, and supported various Iraqi exile groups such as Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. Their concerns about dictators, especially aggressive and oppressive ones, made them opponents of Saddam, and push for his removal. Their distrust of international organizations made them believe that the United Nations would not solve the problem, so the U.S. needed to deal with Iraq unilaterally, perhaps using a pre-emptive strike. Many of these ideas were pushed within the second Bush administration, but they were not the dominant ones.

Many commentators believed that the neoconservatives were the main reason why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, but they were wrong. It seemed like almost every article that discussed the Bush administration’s decision to go to war mentioned the neoconservatives by talking about officials like Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and the desire to spread democracy in the Middle East. This argument ignored the fact that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were not neoconservatives, and were the ones that shaped Iraq policy. In January 2001, Rumsfeld distributed a report on asymmetrical threats to the United States now that the Cold War was over. Iraq was mentioned, because new technologies offered it and other countries the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and nuclear devices, which could threaten U.S. interests. That was the Defense Secretary’s main concern about Iraq from day one of the new administration, to remove the security threat Rumsfeld believed Saddam posed. There was nothing about dictatorships or democracy. President Bush too was concerned about Iraq from the start of his administration, but he voiced none of the neoconservative agenda. In the first two meetings of the National Security Council, the president simply allowed each agency within his administration to follow its own strategy with regards to Iraq from the State Department working on smart sanctions to the Treasury Department looking into cutting off Iraq’s finances to the Pentagon looking into reforming a coalition against Iraq and supporting Iraqi opposition groups. Only that very last point of backing Iraqi opponents was a neoconservative idea. It wasn’t until 9/11 happened that the Bush administration finally started pushing for invading Iraq. Bush thought that Saddam might be involved in the attack, and Rumsfeld hoped that 9/11 might provide an opportunity to strike Iraq. An Iraq-Al Qaeda connection and WMD were not original neoconservative arguments against Iraq, but were adopted by them, so that they could achieve their goal of overthrowing Saddam. That showed that the Bush administration was the one driving the agenda, rather than the neoconservatives.

Fukuyama believed that in backing the Iraq invasion, neoconservatives ended up betraying one of their own ideas, which was the belief that social engineering does not work. Neoconservatives had no ideas on how to build a democracy after the fall of Saddam, or how to develop the country. That’s because almost all of the neoconservative writing focused almost exclusively on using the U.S. military against the country’s enemies, but nothing about what would happen afterward. Neoconservatives in the government seemed to think that the whole process would be quick and easy. Wolfowitz for instance, said that the reconstruction of Iraq would cost little, and would mostly be funded by Iraqi oil revenues. Many neoconservatives also supported the disbanding of the Iraqi security forces having no idea that such institutions as the military were one of the things that held Iraq together, and would be necessary to fight the insurgency. Instead, many seemed to believe that once Saddam was removed, democracy would just come about naturally. Nine years later, Iraq is still struggling with establishing rule of law, building institutions, developing its economy, and creating a democratic form of government showing that the neoconservatives might have been right that grand attempts to change societies usually run into all kinds of problems.

Neoconservatives’ support for the invasion of Iraq brought them into the spotlight in America, but would also discredited many of their ideas immediately afterward. Almost every writing about the Bush administration’s war mentioned neoconservatives as being some of the major movers and thinkers behind the invasion. While they were strong proponents of getting rid of Saddam since the 1990s, they were not the main decision makers within the government. Their support for spreading democracy and concerns about the internal politics of other countries only came to the fore after the invasion when no weapons of mass destruction or Al Qaeda connection were discovered. Those two failures would also not only discredit the administration, but the neoconservatives in general since so many believed that they were the main architects of the war. Neoconservatism went on to cause more problems as they had little to contribute to rebuilding Iraq, because their ideology was originally opposed to such ideas, and they had only focused upon using military force against America’s enemies. Neoconservatives are still involved in American politics today, which is why its important to cut through all the myths about their involvement in Iraq, and understand what their real origins and ideas are.